Invitation To The Blues

Tom Waits

Well she's up against the register with an apron and a spatula,
With yesterday's deliveries and the tickets for the bachelors
She's a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes,
But it's just an invitation to the blues

And you feel just like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth
At the counter of the Schwab's drugstore
You wonder if she might be single, she's a loner and likes to mingle

She said "How you gonna like 'em, over medium or scrambled?",
You say "Anyway's the only way", be careful not to gamble
On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here
In a tired bus station in an old pair of shoes

This ain't nothing but an invitation to the blues
But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java,
And it's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers
Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey
But a brokendown jalopy of a man I left behind

And a dream that I was chasing,
a battle with booze
And an open invitation to the blues

But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple Caddy,
And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things
He probably left her for a socialite, and he didn't love her 'cept at night,
And then he's drunk and never even told her that he cared
So they took the registration,
And the car-keys and her shoes
And left her with an invitation to the blues (...solo sax)

'Cause there's a Continental Trailways leaving local bus tonight, good evening
You can have my seat, I'm sticking round here for a while
Get me a room at the Squire, the filling station's hiring,
And I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?
Got a crazy sensation,
Go or stay? Now I gotta choose,
And I'll accept your invitation to the blues